Version control – document sharing

I was involved today in a bitter altercation – it all revolved around what was said. At the end it became apparent that the disputing parties had different versions of the document and that the source of the dispute lay in the differences between the versions they were using.

On-line collaboration in the production of documents is available for free. Google provides it (if you can get access and some of our members do struggle to be recognised as group members) but there are also other service providers who off the same sort of facility,
eg http://www.4shared.com/share_document.jsp.

But I am sticking with what I have developed a feel for – Google.

I set up a Google group, entered all the key persons and their email address and uploaded the latest versions of all the documents which are under discussion. As I open a new version of the document I upload it to the Google group website. I then send an e-mail to the recipients to inform them of the update.

Now if someone wants the latest version of the document they know where to find it. But I must confess – the degree of scepticism to this process is marked. South African people don’t really believe in it.

But once you’ve set up this facility you can also link to Google Calendar and publish the dates of the next meetings. You can also set it up to set up to send reminder emails before the meeting. I haven’t resorted to that yet but it is something to remember.

Having a group doesn’t mean that the documents are open to all – you can set permissions so that you as moderator can approve all applications to join the group, or you can control group membership by basing it on invitations that you have sent out.